Kankakee Area Anime Association --> Reviews --> Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop
Format: TV Series
Length: 26 episodes x 25 Minutes
Genre: Sci-Fi/Western
Original Air Date: 1998/1999
Creator: Yatate Hamije
Director: Watanabe Shinichiro
Voice Talent:
Spike Spiegel
Yamadera Koichi
Jet Black
Ishizuka Unsho
Faye Valentine
Hayashibara Megumi
Ed
Tada Aoi
Vicious
Wakamoto Norio
Ratings: PG-13
Grades: 10 scale
Animation Quality: 9
Art Quality: 9
Fun Factor: 7
Music Quality: 9
Plot Quality: 6
Script Quality: 8
Overall: 8
Stars: 4 (Excellent)
Synopsis: Cowboy Bebop is the tale of four disparate individuals that are in the bounty hunting profession. The Sol System has been colonized by the use of Jump Gates that make rapid transit from planet to planet possible in mere hours. Like the wild west, the big colonial boom created a nearly lawless frontier. Jet Black and his partner, Spike Spiegel, travel from Mars to Ganymede to Earth and back on the Bebop. Along with femme fatale, Faye Valentine, the manic hacker, Radical Edward, and a genius Corgi named Ein, Spike and Jet attempt to eke out a meager living as bounty hunters on the rapidly civilizing frontier.
Review: Cowboy Bebop would be a tour de force if not for its fragmented, episodic nature. A great deal of characterization is done in the series, letting the viewer truly connect with the cast but, the plot episodes number too few to truly exploit the material. Good direction, excellent scripts, and Kanno Yoko’s masterful musical score really bring out the best of each episode. Sunrise has also provided top notch artwork and animation for a TV series. These technical achievements manage to save a series that, with few exceptions, would otherwise be a bounty of the week marathon. Viewers that enjoy good character development and don’t mind the lack of series size plot will definitely enjoy this fine anime. Those that love Evangelion and other adrenalin junkies may find Bebop to be too slow and mellow for their attentions.
